President Gerhart, Distinguished Guests, Friends...
It is indeed a great honor to stand before you at this special moment of renewal and transition… Perennial as the grass, graduations celebrate achievement and promote transition. Speeches today must both help and challenge you as you embark on your new journey of life.
I have had the occasion to address a number of these gatherings in past years, and some overarching themes recur in what I have to say. But today is different. Today is special for me and for all of you..
Not only is it the start of the new millennium, it is the start of a new world, fashioned by the third great global revolution of humanity, a new world that has never been more promising or more perilous …
As we stand in the shadow of the pyramids, and by the banks of the Nile, we are reminded of the first of the great global revolutions: the agrarian revolution that settled people and launched civilizations.. Our forefathers on this very land were the first to establish the foundations of organized society, and learned to fashion the wise constraints that make people free. They created the wonders of the ancient world, and went on through the ages, with ups and downs, but ever the cradle of civilization.
You are the proud heirs to that great tradition..
The second great global revolution, the industrial revolution, was the harbinger of the dominance of the western powers, and the emergence of the United States of America, a nation forged in the revolutionary tradition, which then went on to invent the longest continually functioning democratic constitution on earth. And from the United states came liberal American education.
As graduates of the AUC you are also the heirs of the proud tradition of American liberal education, with its emphasis on breadth of knowledge , on individualism, on respect for human rights, for the equality of men and women and with its pragmatic focus on problem solving and its determination to let your imaginations soar.
So joining in yourselves the legacy of the past and the promise of the future, the heritage of Egypt and the quality education that you have received, you are among the best prepared of your generation to face the challenges of Egypt and the World in the age of the third great global revolution: the age of information, globalization and the knowledge based economy...
Yes my friends.. you are graduating into a world undergoing a transformation so profound that its contours can only be dimly perceived, and its driving forces can be barely understood, and its momentous consequences can be hardly imagined …
Indeed, it provokes fear as much as it seduces the imagination..
Driven by ever more powerful computers and ever faster communications, the digital language of bits and bytes allows us to merge the realms of words, music, image and data as never before. It creates new industries, the old disappear. With the click of a mouse and the flight of an electron, billions of dollars move across the globe. The fast eat the slow.
The internet revolutionizes the very meaning of time and space. Today there are a billion pages on the internet, by 2005 there will be 8 billion pages…
Will these be the forces of homogenization or of diversity? Will they be used to crush the weak or to afford them new opportunities?
And that is not all. From informatics to the life sciences, the revolution continues. Today we are decoding the DNA blueprints of life, we are learning to manage the deployment and expression of genes, we are mobilizing bacteria to do our work, and we are manipulating the very building blocks of life. Our new capacities pose new and profound ethical and safety issues. Unlike the past, our future will also be complicated by the new issues of proprietary science.
In this world so rapidly reinventing itself, where does Egypt stand?
How will you use your double legacy of Egyptian Heritage and American education to confront the double challenge of modernizing Egypt and of shaping a better world?
Let us look back in order to look forward...
Learning from the Past
Half a lifetime ago, and half a world away, standing before another graduating class at the American University in Washington DC, President John F. Kennedy spoke of world peace. He said:
“For, in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children’s future. And we are all mortal.”
That clarion call to recognize our common humanity is more needed today than it was four decades ago. For if we have pushed back the specter of nuclear holocaust, other challenges loom ahead. Challenges that are as serious and as daunting: Globalization, environment, poverty and hunger...
· 1.2 billion people live on less than a dollar a day.
· 3 billion people live on less than two dollars a day.
· One person in five does not have access to clean water
· Half the people have no access to sanitation.
The marine fisheries of the world are grossly over exploited. The soils are eroding. Water is becoming scarcer. Deforestation, desertification, climate change and biodiversity loss all demand redoubled efforts. In the 47 “least developed” countries of the world, 10 percent of the world’s population subsists on less than 0.5 percent of the world’s income. Some 40,000 people die from hunger related causes every day. A sixth or more of the human family lives a marginalized existence.
Therein, lies the challenge before us. Will we accept such human degradation as inevitable? Or will we strive to help the less fortunate among the human family? Will we consider that we are no longer responsible for future generations, or will we try to act as true stewards of the earth?
Understanding the present
It is not resources that are lacking, it is the will to harness them. Indeed the world has never been richer, and the future promises even more ...
Globalization on the eve of the millennium:
Today, despite the enormous burst of output and productivity, an alarming rise in inequality is noticeable between and within countries.
· The 3 richest persons have more wealth than the entire GNP of the 48 poorest countries!
· The 15 richest persons have more wealth than the entire GNP generated by the 500 million persons of sub-Saharan Africa!
· The richest 20% of humanity receive more than 85% of the income, yet they do not want to allocate 0.3% of their GNP for assistance to the 80% who receive about 15% of world income
Incredible wealth is accompanied by a remarkable lack of caring for the weak and the marginalized… We must harness the emerging universal values of our common humanity, and see beyond individual wealth and growth of GNP… and remember, as Robert Kennedy said, that:
“The Gross National Product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education, or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages; the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage; neither our wisdom nor our learning; neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country; it measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile.”
And in the pursuit of that which makes life worthwhile, I say:
We must not forget the weak and the vulnerable in this increasingly competitive world. The ruthless allocative efficiency of the markets should be tempered by a caring and nurturing society.
Abraham Lincoln once warned the American people that a house divided cannot stand, that a nation cannot live half slave and half free.
Today, I warn you and all people on earth, that a world divided cannot survive, that the human family cannot live partly rich and mostly poor.
We must change the world. Do not listen to the cynics and the nay-sayers! The world can be changed, but only if we fight against the prevailing apathy and lack of caring.
The New Abolitionists:
To this fight, this new generation, whose vanguard you represent, must bring its abilities and a sense of moral outrage. Yes, moral outrage.
It is inconceivable that there should be some 800 million persons going hungry in a world that can provide for that most basic of all human needs. In the 19th century, some people looked at the condition of slavery and said that it was monstrous and unconscionable. That it must be abolished. They were known as the abolitionists. They did not argue from economic self interest, but from moral outrage.
Today the condition of hunger in a world of plenty is equally monstrous and unconscionable and must be abolished. We must become the "new abolitionists".
We must, with the same zeal and moral outrage, attack the complacency that would turn a blind eye to this silent holocaust which claims some 40,000 hunger-related deaths every day.
This theme is one that I take mostly to young graduating classes like yourselves, because
in the nobility of your spirit,
in the exuberance of your youth,
in the quality of the education you have received,
in the unsullied idealism that you possess,
in the dedication to our common humanity that you bring …
… I find the hope of mastering the third great global revolution and of building better tomorrows.
Shaping a better World
The secret of success will be more in the bedrock of your values, inherited and learned, than in the specific knowledge you have gained today. You have learned to learn, but more importantly, you have grown to care.
So, harness your skill, your imagination and your determination to create a better world for all, not just for yourselves…
The challenge is great, but it must be met
The costs of inaction: There is a tide...
Consider for a moment the alternative for Egypt and the world if we continue with business as usual …
For There is a tide ...
There is a tide of humanity,
Millions of young people demanding the right to a decent life,
a life without fear or despair,
a chance to break free of the misery of poverty...
That tide, that unstoppable tide of human ambition will not be denied...
And if it is denied, then it will be a tide of anger, of hate, of violence, that will engulf all before it and consume us all in its fiery embrace of rejected present and foregone tomorrows..
There is a tide ..
A Tide of suffering,
Of Children malnourished, stunted, deprived,
They haunt our television screens and our dreams..
In Sudan, in Ethiopia, in Bosnia, in Korea... Our brothers and sisters, our children, fellow human beings ..
Left to their fate...
While a new class of rich consumers discuss the prices of everything and the value of nothing...
There is a tide of pollution
from our cities, our cars and our factories..
A tide of destructive chemicals in the water we drink, the food we eat and the air we breathe...
There is a tide of ignorance and greed
A tide of advertising images that invade our living rooms, dull our senses and shape our consciousness all at the same time
A tide of news, that washes out yesterday’s stories of pith and moment with today’s latest gossip or trivia
A tide of information, blurring meaning in countless billions of bits and bytes,
..
There is a tide of intolerance and obscurantism,
That wants to stop the march of time and freeze our minds
That teaches hatred and fear
And against that tide we must harness another tide...
The tide of new awareness...
For there is a tide of understanding, of caring
A tide of awareness that the rights of all: women, minorities, the weak and the poor are indivisible from our own...
There is a tide of awareness that we cannot let the world drift into inequality, misery and environmental degradation,
There is a tide of knowledge, science and new technologies, that can be harnessed for the benefit of all…
Yes...there is a tide in the affairs of Men
which taken at the flood leads on to fortune ...
Fortune, not just in terms of more economic growth,
Fortune in terms of true well‑being.
Fortune in terms of leaving a better world for our children
Yes ...
There is a tide that leads on to fortune.
Omitted, all the voyage of their lives
is bound in shallows and in miseries ...
If we fail to change the way people think about themselves and the world...
If we fail to engage the streets of our cities and the fields of our countryside...
Then the poor will indeed suffer, the world will indeed be harmed, and our future will indeed be bound in shallows and in miseries ..
On such a full sea are we now afloat, and we must take the current when it serves or lose our ventures
The sea is indeed full, it is full of threats, and full of promise.
We have the opportunity not just to navigate this sea, but in fact to show how we can create a new society, a better tomorrow …
For there is a tide out there ...
There is a tide in the Affairs of Men...
Which taken at the flood leads on to fortune.
Omitted, all the voyage of their lives
is bound in shallows and in miseries.
On such a full sea are we now afloat
and we must take the current when it serves
or lose our ventures.
We will Not lose our ventures.
We will create the new world, guided by a vision…
A vision of the future:
A vision of a caring society where (in keeping with Gandhi) there would be
NO Politics without principle
NO Wealth without work
NO Commerce without morality
NO Pleasure without conscience
NO Education without character
NO Science without humanity
A vision where a people’s greatness is measured by the quality of the lives of their poorest citizens not by the size of their armies or the scale of their buildings..
A vision where the future is for all, as open-ended as knowledge, as random as play, as surprising as human imagination and ingenuity …
Yes! We must change the world… We must ensure that the new millennium is indeed the millennium for all the wretched of the earth.
It can be done, it must be done, and by your work … it will be done.
Your responsibility:
My friends,
You are the vanguard of the new generation of the third great global revolution . So, go forth into the journey of your lives, and create a better world for yourselves and for others. Think of the unborn, remember the forgotten, give hope to the forlorn, include the excluded, reach out to the unreached, and by your actions from this day onwards lay the foundation for better tomorrows.
Thank you.